Both True at COP27

Mia Rabson, reporting for the Globe and Mail, writes that Canada won’t back the call at COP27 to ‘phase down’ oil and gas production.

Two directions?

“Everything we do is challenged in the court,” he said. “[Carbon] pricing was challenged, our plastic pollution regulations were challenged, our environmental impact assessment is being challenged – either by provinces or companies, or both. And if we’re not on very solid legal ground, we will lose in front of the tribunals and that doesn’t help anyone.”

Guilbeault said Canada hasn’t been challenged over plans to phase out coal, but is on almost everything it does on the oil and gas side.

“We have to be super careful in terms of what we do that what we do will hold in court,” he said. “Otherwise we’re wasting time, and precious time, to fight climate change.”

Julia Levin, national climate program manager for Environmental Defence, called that a disappointing excuse.

“I’d say it’s clear that the government of Canada is beholden to fossil fuel lobbyists and putting their interests ahead of public welfare,” said Levin.

She added that Canada’s position is strange, considering the agreement would likely have included the same abatement provision as coal. While Levin doesn’t back carbon capture and storage as a serious solution to cutting emissions, she said even that would be “a clear signal that, according to the U.S. and others, the age of oil and gas is over.”

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, meanwhile, said getting lower-emission oil and natural gas to international markets is paramount for its members. (Rabson, 2022)

Perhaps the concern of the Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault and the goal of Julia Levin, national climate program manager for Environmental Defence, both reflect progress in dealing with the climate emergency.

References

Rabson, M. (2022, November 18). Canada won't back call at COP27 to 'phase down' oil and gas production. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved November 19, 2022, from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-canada-wont-back-call-at-cop27-to-phase-down-oil-and-gas-production-2/ 

Engineering Climate Change for a just transition

Engineering is a discipline, based on science, that works to achieve realistic outcomes for deploying technology to solve problems within boundaries set by deadlines and economic constraints.

Engineering Discipline and Climate Change

 

Following the science to the low carbon world is best implemented by engineering professionals.

Professor Susan Krumdieck, a New Zealand engineering academic, is currently Professor and Chair in Energy Transition at Heriot-Watt University, where she leads the academic programme of the Islands Centre for Net Zero. Her research and teaching since 2000 at Canterbury University in New Zealand focused on developing the engineering methods and innovative technologies for adaptation to reduced fossil fuel production and consumption.

Transition Engineering is an emerging field where engineers in all disciplines use a standard methodology to change unsustainable practices through innovating and carrying out “carbon shift projects” that achieve the deep 80% downshift in fossil fuel use, while increasing long-term real values, reliability and wellbeing… There are thousands of carbon shift changes that stop fossil carbon from being extracted and reduce the risk of runaway global warming..1

Six Areas where Transition Engineering can apply established methodology to determine the most suitable path to reduce fossil fuel production and consumption are:

1. OIL, GAS AND COAL PRODUCTION
2. TRANSPORT
3. ELECTRICITY
4. CAPTURING AND BALANCING EMISSIONS
5. AGRICULTURE
6. POPULATION

OIL, GAS AND COAL PRODUCTION

Deep and rapid reduction of emissions requires deep and rapid reduction of fossil fuel extraction and production and engineering analysis to inform international and national policy energy transition to low carbon.

 

TRANSPORT

Transport Transition Engineering is paramount for reduction of automobile production, decommissioning of fuel depots and service stations, growth of electric rail, urban trams and coastal shipping, and particularly in innovating ways to adapt for freight logistics and airline travel.

 

ELECTRICITY

Electric Power Engineering experts will work with Energy Managers, Energy Engineers, and Building Services to develop demand-side participation innovations that marry up the supply and demand. Engineers work with politicians and the public to determine the potential energy supply, costs and power grid stability.

 

CAPTURING AND BALANCING EMISSIONS

Engineers in coal and gas power generation, fertiliser production and steel production will be honest with politicians and the public about the possibility to engineer the transition to 80% less emissions with Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS), and begin immediately to either install such systems or engineer the transition in some other manner.

 

AGRICULTURE

Agricultural Transition Engineering to achieve economically effective downshifting of fertiliser use, water consumption, and ruminant stock numbers.

 

POPULATION

The Transition Engineering ethos of preventing what is preventable leads engineers to work on problems that have not previously been the purview of engineering.

 

The training and experience of engineers needs to be applied to the transitions required by climate change. In this way, expertise in the deployment of technology according to a plan that calculates the requirements for a just and economically feasible outcome, can result in career opportunities for technologists, technicians, and tradespeople in the low carbon world necessary for our best lives in the coming decades.

 

References

  

1 (2021, June 18). The Role of Engineering in Addressing Climate Change - Panmure .... Retrieved November 20, 2021, from https://www.panmurehouse.org/perspectives/articles/the-role-of-engineering-in-addressing-climate-change/